A question for reservists past and present... what is the farthest you have ever lived from your reserve unit?

Can you elaborate that last part? I understand RFX units are supposed to be more high tempo by reserve standards right?

SSG (Join to see) - Annual Training frequently pushes 28 days, just enough to avoid BAH. The training schedule is constantly changing and effectively worthless in allowing soldiers to plan out school and work schedules. While 48 MUTA's are the limit, frequently they are moved to 6-8 MUTA training that results in eating into the working week on top of the 28 days from work you need when you only get 2 weeks vacation.

By no means is it anywhere remotely 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks a year. It's mostly 1 weekend a month with several weekdays, and then an entire Month of AT. Then one has to account for additional schools, or tasker missions like gun crew vehicle training.

Then on the other side of the coin one could find themselves in a unit without any of that, and it truly is 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks a year. Some people can jump head first into the accelerated OPTEMPO, while others are trying to get a degree or don't have more than 2 weeks of vacation from work.

If one doesn't research what kind of unit they are getting into before hand there could be a lot of painful conflicts. This of course is going to be every single new soldier being randomly placed in a unit by a recruiter.

CPT (Join to see) yep. I know all about that MUTA 6-8 life. I was OCONUS when I signed a contract for the reservese and didn't know much about what to expect. I knew my terminal leave lined up with the start of my school semester so that was the plan. Basically had to take off a semester because my reclass was a month and my training NCO dropped the ball on my packet so I couldn't go during the summer.

Add on the fact that when I got to my unit they got orders saying the unit was deploying for the first time since WW2 so being infantry with 2 deployments and no deployed officers in my unit, my CO asked me to go with them for my leadership and deployment experience. The roughly 3 years, not counting the deployment I spent with the unit, I've been trying to knock out my degree while getting PME. Finally on tract to graduate this semester and hopefully get ALC soon.

I work for division now and I see the difference in unit's planning their drill schedules effectively.

CPT (Join to see) - Can't agree more on the last part you mentioned Sir, especially got promoted and transferred.